Page 22 - Mounted Oriental Porcelain Getty Museum

What Felebien described as Vengoument pour la mission from the king of Siam. Both were trade delega-
Chine of the French was strikingly manifested by the so- tions, arising from the great difficulties that the French
called Trianon de Porcelaine erected in 1670-71 in the government had encountered in its endeavors to set up a
park at Versailles by Louis xiv for his reigning mistress, Compagnie de la Chine with a trading post in the Celes-
the redoubtable and witty marquise de Montespan.32 tial Kingdom. As a second-best solution, it was decided
This garden pavilion, though of purely European design to establish trade relations with the kingdom of Siam, a
(the only concession to Chinese architecture was a slight staging post on the trade route from China to Europe.
upturning of the corners of the roof), was faced with The two missions which visited France for this purpose
plaques of faience (porcelain had not yet been invented in were organized under royal patronage by a Greek mer-
Europe) painted to imitate Chinese blue-and-white por- chant, Constantinos Phaulkon, who had established
celain. The blue-and-white color scheme was extended himself as a trader in Bangkok and succeeded in seizing
to the interior where the paneling of the rooms was sim- considerable political power there.
ilarly painted. A contemporary wrote enthusiastically:
The first exploratory mission was a small one
Considerons un peu ce chateau de plaisance headed by two "mandarins" attended by twenty assis-
Voyez-vous comme il est tout couvert de faience tants and a group of young Siamese boys who were
D'urnes de porcelaine et de vases divers brought to France to learn the language and, if possible,
Que le font eclater aux yeux de I'univers.33 receive training in certain Western crafts. The second
mission was considerably larger and was solemnly re-
Unhappily, the faience tiles of the exterior did not stand ceived by Louis xiv in the Grande Galerie at Versailles
up to the winter climate of northern France, and the on the first of September i686.36
building had to be pulled down in 1677 after barely
six years of use.34 For the French, the most remarkable part of the
visit was the large quantity of oriental goods—espe-
If further evidence of the French admiration for Far cially porcelains, lacquers, and textiles—that the "am-
Eastern porcelain in these early years of Louis xiv's bassadors" brought with them as gifts for the king, his
reign is needed, it can be seen clearly in two examples. family, and the principal court officials. Although a num-
The king himself was accustomed to take the morning ber of more or less detailed accounts of these presents
cup of bouillon., which comprised his breakfast, in a
bowl of Chinese porcelain "tres fine . . . garnye par le FIGURE n. Jean Arnould (act. 1685-87) under the supervisionof
pied d'un cercle d3or et par les le costez de deux ances de Martin van den Bogaert, called Desjardins (1637-1694). Circular
serpentes tortillez, aussi d'or."35 Perhaps of even greater bronze plaque showing the Siamese "ambassadors" offering gifts to
significance is the fact that in 1678, when the Duchess Louis xiv in 1686. From the decorations of the destroyed equestrian
of Cleveland wanted to dispose of her large collection monument to the king, formerly in the Place des Victoires.
of oriental porcelains, she sent them from London Private Collection.
to Paris to be sold. "II s'en est vu cette annee d'ex-
traordinaires," we read in the Mercure Galant for
that year, ((ce sont les porcelaines que Mme.
la Duchesse de Cleveland y a fait vendre . . .
Les plus rares etaient montees d'or ou de
vermeil dore et garnies diversement de meme
matiere en plusiers endroits." This can only mean
that mounted porcelains were in greater demand in
the French capital than in London. The article ends
with a long and interesting discussion of the origin of
the word porcelaine.

The event, however, which elevated this "engou-
ment pour la Chine3' (a word that embraced Japanese
and even Siamese works of art as well as Chinese) from a
mere fashion to a veritable rage in French society, was the
arrival in 1684 of the so-called Siamese "ambassadors"
to the court of Versailles and their return two years later
(fig. u). In fact, neither group was strictly a diplomatic

INTRODUCTION 9